<nettime> Zapatista Tribal Port Scan (ZTPS): A Demonstration Tool

["ricardo dominguez" <rdom@thing.net>]

Zapatista Tribal Port Scan (ZTPS): A Demonstration Tool
By Electronic Disturbance Theater

Chiapas, Mexico - January 3rd, 2000 - the Zapatista Air Force "bombarded"
the federal barracks of the Mexican Army with hundreds of paper airplanes.
Each airplane carried a message for the soldiers monitoring the border. In
remembrance of this event the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT)
releases a digital translation of the Zapatista Air Force Action: the
Zapatista Tribal Port Scan.

To down load ZTPS Demonstration Kit:
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html

ZTPS Against Bush.

For those who want to participate in the Anti-Bush actions
on-line on January 20, 2001.
http://www.thing.net/~beestal/ztps.sit

*zapatista tribal port scan  source code was distributed
by EDT on Jan. 3, 2001 and can be found at:
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html
In Solidarity with the Zapatistas’ Paper Airplane Action.


[[About the Zapatista Tribal Port Scan (ZTPS)]]:

What is a port?

A port is an abstraction for the connection points used for network
services, such as e-mail and the WWW. Every computer connected to the
Internet has 65536 ports through which other computers on the net might
establish socket connections. Common services such as http (the web) and
e-mail are implemented as socket connections, using standard ports such as
80 (http), and 25 (smtp).

What is a port scan?

It is possible, actually common, to attempt to make a socket connections
on a server's multitude of ports in order to determine what services
reside on that machine.

Why scan ports?

Port scans should be non-controversial. If your machine is connected to
the Internet, you are exposing all of your ports, and you should expect
connection attempts on any of them. Because a port scan is sometimes, very
rarely, a prelude to hacking attempts, many system administrators mistakenly
classify the port scan itself as a hostile act.

But just because a port scan may on rare occasions reveal an exploitable
weakness, it is not the same as actually exploiting the weakness. It is no
different in principle from counting the windows and doors of a secure
building from a public sidewalk. If a machine is on the public Internet,
the ports are visible from that public sidewalk. It is the responsibility
of building security to evaluate any threat; no law can be passed against
looking. (Except under fascism, of course.)

Who is paranoid about their ports?

Typically it is the most powerful who can afford the high cost of total
paranoia. Some systems utilize sophisticated security software that
reports on every attempted connection, or warns administrators about large
numbers of unusual connection attempts. From this you may draw your own
conclusions about exactly whose machines and people are likely to pay
attention to the kind of tribal scan that ZTPS performs.

What is Tribal?

Tribal is a term that refers to the use of more than one computer (their
different network identities), to distribute the work. The Zapatista
Tribal Port Scan uses the Java Virtual Machine available in all standard
web browsers to implement the port scan. The participating user simply
visits the web site URL of a ZTPS implementation, and the scanning begins.
Designed to be opened in a smallish browser window and minimized for all
day scanning at home, work, or school, the ZTPS applet will scan a random
port on a particular machine (chosen by the implementers posting the ZTPS
site), from once per minute to once per hour, selectable by the user.
Using both TCP and UDP socket connections, ZTPS may be configured to
randomly select from an implementer selected list of text messages, some
of which may be logged by targeted machines. (Messages flying over the
fence.) A download button in the applet interface makes it easy for users
to download ready-to-implement software, and full source code for their
own purposes. ZTPS effectiveness improves with the number of participating
user/activists, so collective participation, as always, is very important.

Why a Zapatista Port Scan?

The Zapatista's are winning the war. Their intelligent and calculated
application of the responsibility to risk, their creativity and conceptual
edge in terms of activism, and their commitment to provocative
transgressions that turn the opposition's borders into Zapatista assets,
all point toward port scanning as an activist tool, and conceptual art.
(Remember that Subcomandante Marcos was a Professor of Digital Media ;-)

EDT freely offers ZTPS to the community of net activists and artists with
a few requests. Please improve, mutate, grow and spread the code. Please
also think of the system administrators who will pick up your packet
airplanes when they land in the security logs on the other side of the
fence;-)

P.S.  On December 2, 2000, subcomandante Marcos announced that
 the central command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN)
 will travel to Mexico City in February, to lobby for passage of the
 San Andres Accords. For Marcos and the Zapatista leadership, this
 will be their first public appearance outside of Chiapas since their
 uprising began in 1994. In announcing their historic trip to Mexico City,
 Marcos has invited the accompaniment of national and international civil
society
 to join the Zapatistas from February 24 to March 10. The trip to Mexico
City
 will start in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, on February 24 and
 end in Mexico City on March 6. The Electronic Disturbance Theater will
 join the procession - we invite all of you to join also.

 Zapatista March 2001

 http://www.ezlnaldf.org

 Zapatistas

 http://www.ezln.org

 ***[[Message EZLN Sideload]]***

 Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
 Mexico.

 January 12, 2001.

 To Civil Society:

 Madame:

 I am writing to you while it is raining and we are waiting here for the
 return of the companeros and companeras who went to the march in San
 Cristobal de Las Casas. In a manner which is not customary for us, we are
 trying to keep you informed as to how things are going here through letters
 like this.

 The Zapatista Information Center's mailbox has been quickly filling, being
 emptied, and filling up again. Greetings and mobilization proposals from
 various states in the Republic are arriving. In the D.F., for example, a
 very detailed proposal came from U.A.M. which, however, presents serious
 inconveniences. For example, they invite us to dine, but how are we going
 to eat with our ski-masks on? Ah, really? So the promises about improving
 the menu are of no use if, whenever they want, we're going to end up being
 fed intravenously. In Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, they were handing out
 flyers in the streets today, and in Tijuana, B.C., they held a rally. From
 Guanajuato, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla and Hidalgo, they are asking us for the
 dates and our itinerary in their states. Fine, we're going to make this
 public when we have it ready. Don't worry, and have the parties ready.

 On the international level, the influx is no less: a delegation of
 Italians, between 200 and 300 persons, confirmed that they will be arriving
 in Mexico in February, and they'll be prepared for being expelled. From
 San Francisco, California, U.S., they are advising us they will be coming
 to accompany the delegation, and they will be informing the "Frisco"
 community of everything that happens along the route and during the stay in
 the D.F. From Switzerland, they have confirmed the attendance of a
 delegation. We are being advised of the same from Argentina and France.
 In the State of Spain, they don't stop. In addition to hanging from towers
 and mountains, they are going to set out (they don't say by what means, but
 I imagine it won't be walking) to throw themselves into the entire route.

 Something verrry important: accommodations. And I'm not referring to the
 accommodations for the zapatista delegation, but those for all the people
 who, from the states of the Republic and from other parts of the world, are
 going to participate in the march along with us. An idea: that
 organizations and groups which can offer places to put people up please
 advise the Zapatista Information Center, and the "pilgrims" can then be
 informed.

 Concerning the technological breakthroughs, I am informing you that the Web
 page is now functioning. The address is: http://www.ezlnaldf.org I am
 taking the opportunity to make a request of all the web pages that already
 exist, or which refer to the zapatones and their movement: please put in a
 "link" or "pass", or whatever it's called, so that those visiting your
 pages can also have access to the one about the current mobilization. We
 also have our e-mail address now. The address is: ciz@ezlnaldf.org

 Good, that's how things are up to now. We'll be passing along more
 information to you in the next one.

 Vale. Salud, and may peace come soon dot com.

 >From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

 Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
 Mexico, January of 2001.

 http://www.ezlnaldf.org

********

To down load ZTPS Disturbance Kit:
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html

ZTPS Against Bush.

For those who want to participate in the Anti-Bush actions
on-line on January 20, 2001.
http://www.thing.net/~beestal/ztps.sit


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